So I'm recently back from vacation in New Zealand. First time me and Jenya went on a trip with no real plan - no gigs, no major backpacking effort, just get in a campervan and see as much of a new country as we possibly could. It was a bit "off season" - few tourists and cheaper fares, but lots of rain and a little snow. Despite the weather we got to see a fair amount - we drove about 3000 kilometers during our 2 week stay, and hiked a few dozen kilometers as well, took a cruise around Doubtful Sound, went to Tongariro the day after Ruapehu erupted (just some ash came out)... First time I was ever in the Southern Hemisphere. Neat to see some different stars, the upside down/backwards moon... And drove on the "wrong" side of the road for the first time. Wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

So I can add NZ to my embarrassingly small number of foreign countries I have visited: Canada, England, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, and now NZ. Yep - still haven't been to Mexico (but seen it in the distance countless times driving on highway 10). We were planning on going to Mexico this time, in fact, but with all the recent hurricane activity...

I do travel a lot, though - I've been to 48 of the 50 United States, most of them many times. Still haven't been to Alaska or North Dakota. I'll make it there someday.

Okay back to work.

- Matt

____________
-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude

Lots of fun on left side driving. My first was in 1954 when two buddies and I went to England to visit distant relatives. They managed a sheep and cattle stud farm. Mostly to send good breeding buls/rams to other places in the far flung empire.

Take a ferry to Dover or a coastal boat at least once to see the really (at least then) white chalk cliffs. Signs on exti from ferry landing in every continental language reminds akk drivers to drive left. As you found out the roundabouts are bacward, and right rurns are no fun when there is congested traffic.

That was before school and marriage and since then we have been there by air four times, renting a car after short stays in London.

Never been to NZ, but rode our bikes from Melbourne to Sidney on Caltex 200th aniversary of the first selelers in 1788. We broke a drought, and from my understanding they could use a lot of rain now as well.

They would really like to have all the liquid/solids from the sky you saw.

Glad you had good time. Obviously you located the southern cross as well.

I think you may have stirred a thought of another treck down under for us! Being retired and all time there would not be limited. This time we probably would see both NZ and Oz.

I spent first seven years in Minnesota, three just east of Fargo, ND. No electricity in the farm. Coal oil lamps illuminated the place. This was during the depression. Power came several years later. Remaining time in Minneapolis. Location very close to the north end of the bridge (No it wasn't there then) that fell in the Mississippi. The school I went to still exists, but with new building. At that age I had no reference to temperature, just that it was nice to get to the warm buildings at each end of the trip to and from school. A few times my mother went with me. I presume those were the really cold days in the city. In those days Minnesota had kindergarten. One of the payoffs of iron ore tax, I presume.

My mother taught school at International Falls before marriage. Winter there is really cold. A few football players of the twenties were toughened up by the weather and work in the pulp mills.